Chapter Six
Salt Lake City, Utah
The Highway Hellions MC Clubhouse
Hal ‘Crusher’ Alcott threw the tiny skirt at the drunk blonde that he’d just brutally fucked.
“Jesus fuck , bitch,” he snarled. “Can you move any fucking slower? I said , get out of here. You’ve been useful in the only way that counts with your skank cunt, and I want your ass out of this room now .”
She bent over to retrieve the skirt, tottered on her sky-high high heels, and fell down to the floor with a moan. Enraged at being disobeyed by a worthless club pass-around, Crusher leapt to his feet, launched himself at her. With one massive hand, he grabbed her by her slim throat and lifted her straight up and off the floor. Automatically, helplessly, her two hands went to his one, tugging and pulling at it, desperate to draw breath.
“ What. Did. I. Say ,” he hissed into her contorted face that was slowly turning violet. Still with just one hand, he turned and slammed her back against the wall, her feet dangling and kicking a good four feet off the ground. “ I. Said. Get. The. Fuck. Out .”
He dropped her now, without warning or grace, and she crashed back to the floor. Even though she was stunned and had the breath totally knocked out of her, she somehow still managed to do what he said this time: she knew good and well what happened when Crusher got his hands around people’s windpipes. It was how he’d earned his MC name, of course.
Crusher narrowed his light-green eyes as the club whore finally hauled her pathetic ass out of the President’s office, and then he allowed himself a tiny grin. That had been fun, he had to admit – and he wasn’t thinking about the sex. Club sex was free and easy and on-tap and thrown in his face every minute of every day, and it was almost deadly boring at this point.
No, he’d been thinking about his hand around her delicate throat, about that incredible shade of light blue that her lips had turned, about how powerful it had felt to throw her against the wall and then to the floor without a goddamn care. All with one hand.
It had been a good long time since Crusher had had a person’s throat in his bare hands, and he was getting itchy to do it for real and properly. He needed to feel somebody’s larynx and trachea fracture in his hands, needed to hear the cartilage structures crunch and crumble, needed to see the horror and pain in his victim’s eyes, eyes that were right there , inches away from Crusher’s own grinning face. Eyes in which the light and awareness just went out for good and forever, as he watched.
There was nothing better. Sex couldn’t even come close.
He needed something to show up over the horizon, and soon, because if he couldn’t find a rival or enemy to crush, he’d have to make do with one of the club sluts.
Again .
He’d get away with it, naturally. Everyone would just pretend once more that the girl had disappeared one night – maybe overdosed, maybe got on a bus back to wherever the fuck she came from, maybe stumbled drunk or high into a road and got hit by a truck – and there would be exactly zero questions asked or concerns raised. People would tiptoe around him even more than usual, the club whores would work double-time to keep him happy, thanking God the whole time that it hadn’t been them who’d fallen victim to his fierce urges and diabolical needs.
That time. Next time, they might not be as lucky, and they might be way more dead.
The problem was that women were no challenge whatsoever for him. He was a six-foot-six Goliath of pure, bulging muscle, and he topped the scales at three hundred and ten pounds. He looked at Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and considered the man a goddamn pussy. Crusher knew that he could fuck that man up and barely break a sweat – so what chance did a woman have to put up a fight? Any woman?
Crusher stretched, ran his massive hands through his blond hair, scowled at himself in the mirror. He was just wondering what the fuck he was going to do to pass the next few hours, and toyed with the idea of taking the boys out on the bikes to look for trouble, the kind that he’d be able to finish the way that he craved. That was when there was a sharp knock at the office door that he recognized as his Vice-President’s distinctive, weirdly jaunty three-tap.
“Come in!” he shouted. “And this better be good, Viper!”
The door swung open and Viper Grant stood there, gazing at his Prez warily. Crusher had been even surlier and scarier than usual, and that was sure as hell saying something, and what it was saying was not good . Viper was no stranger to violence, but even he was starting to wonder what would happen if Crusher lost his shit out of sheer boredom and inactivity, and went completely off the deep end.
Well. More off it than he already was. The man was a certified homicidal lunatic, and Viper didn’t allow himself to forget that for one goddamn second. He’d never truly understood the term ‘bloodlust’ until he’d met Crusher Alcott. Oh, sure, Crusher was exactly the man to have on your side when the shit was hitting the fan and bullets were flying, but when life was calm and normal, he was a loose cannon wrapped in alcohol-soaked cotton with a tinderbox attached to a hairpin. He was volatile .
Viper sent up a quick prayer – and he wasn’t even a praying kind of man – that what had just wandered into the clubhouse bar wasn’t going to be the thing that shoved his President right off the edge of sanity. God knows, Crusher was teetering on it at the best of times.
“Yeah,” Viper said. “A guy has just shown up in the main room, says he knows you from back in the day.”
“Who?”
“Says you know him as Web.”
Crusher stared at his Veep. “Did you say Web ?”
“Yep.” Viper couldn’t tell if this was good news or not. “Tall, dark-haired guy.”
Without a word, Crusher stalked out of the office. Viper trailed behind, wondering if this was the day he was finally going to meet his Maker: the longer he hung around Crusher Alcott, the chances of it happening only increased exponentially.
Crusher stood in the doorway of the bar area, his head cocked to the side as he took in the man planted smack in the middle of the room. He looked exhausted and filthy, and on his still-impressive chest he was wearing a gold badge that looked like angel’s wings.
“Well, well, well,” Crusher said softly. “Darryl Webber, as I live and breathe. What the fuck happened up there at your magic garden?”
**
Right-Guardian Michael looked at his old high school buddy and felt nothing but relief and a sense of familiarity. The men hadn’t actually seen in other in almost two years, but that didn’t matter at all. That was how it was with true friends; friends who had had each other’s backs through thick and thin and all the crap in between.
Hal Alcott had always been a hulking motherfucker, and he’d quite appropriately gone to a major college on a full-ride football scholarship. His parents had died halfway through his first year, though, so right away and without any hesitation, Hal had started some lousy factory job and taken care of his kid sister Shay. He’d given up a lot to keep the two of them together, and from what Michael had seen first-hand, he’d done pretty damn well.
Then the canning factory has gone bust, and soon after that Hal had been recruited by The Highway Hellions; that was when he’d pretty much disappeared from Michael’s social circle. Oh, he’d run across Hal sometimes on the streets of Salt Lake City, back when Michael had been dealing drugs and pimping women. He’d even done a bit of side-business with the Hellions: providing whores for their MC parties, and stupid bitches to act as sacrificial mules on their riskier drug runs… and he’d once provided a much-needed alibi for the man in front of him.
After he’d done so, Hal – no,no, Crusher, remember – had promised him that if Michael ever needed anything, he was to come and ask and Crusher would make it happen, no matter what. It was a debt that was still outstanding, and Michael hadn’t wanted to waste it on something trifling.
But he was calling it in now. He was going to have Crusher make good on it now.
Of course his old friend knew all about him joining Gideon, and moving into the Garden. Crusher had teased him mercilessly about it, and when Michael had stubbornly insisted on starting a whole new life – a better life as Michael, a more righteous one which Gideon had promised him – Crusher had actually been more concerned than mocking.
“You watch your back in there, Web,” Crusher had told him. “If things go south, you call me, and I’ll fucking raze the place to the ground to get you out. No questions asked.”
Well, it turned out that his friend wasn’t the one to destroy the Garden… but he was the one who was going to help Michael get his revenge.
Vengeance is fucking mine .
“The Garden has fallen,” he said now. “It was overrun and taken.”
Crusher studied him for a minute, then said, “I know. It was all over the local news.”
“I know who did it,” Michael said. “And I’m here to ask you to help me end them once and for all… I’m collecting on what you promised me once.”
Those mint-green eyes flared with sudden heat. For a wild second, Michael wondered if it was anger – maybe Crusher had no desire to be reminded about a debt to an old buddy – but then he realized that it was delight lighting up those icy eyes. Crusher was happy that he was being asked to repay the favor.
“So who did it, Web?” Crusher said, and Michael didn’t even consider correcting him for using his old nickname. “Who ripped up your home?”
“The Road Devils MC,” Michael said, the bitterness making his voice sharp. “The Road Devils took the Garden.”
Crusher’s reaction was unlike anything that Michael could have possibly foreseen. He froze, he seemed to even stop breathing. For a few seconds, he was fully Hal, the kid that Michael had played football with, back when he’d been Darryl. Crusher was wrong-footed, surprised, shocked, and that was when Michael knew that he had absolutely made the right decision to come here. The Road Devils were a major problem for some reason, and the one thing that Crusher hated was an unresolved problem.
“How do you know it was them?” Crusher spoke quietly. “How do you know for sure ?”
“Because I was sent by Gideon with dear-departed Right-Guardian Zachariah to watch them. They’d helped one of Gideon’s woman-servants escape, and Gideon tracked the vehicle to one of the MC businesses. I sat in their parking lot in Denver for weeks , I saw them come and go, I knew most of them by sight… and so when I saw the men who took the Garden, I knew exactly who I was looking at. I don’t know their names, but I can describe them perfectly.”
“Go on.”
“There were two dark-haired men who were twins, and one red-headed giant with a beard, and a – well.” Michael paused, trying to think how to describe the last man. “A huge blond man who looked like some kind of – I don’t know – like a Nordic warrior, or something. He had the coldest blue eyes I’ve ever seen, even from fifty feet away.”
Crusher hissed, and a bit unnerved at that , Michael hesitated. At a nod from Crusher, he continued:
“They – they showed up with a cop that Gideon was blackmailing, a bitch named Briley Cross. The group of them shot up the Garden, killed Gideon and a bunch of my fellow Guardians, and walked out with two of Gideon’s women-servants, Iris and Violet. They got in a van and took off.”
“So a bitch cop, two dark-haired twins, a red-bearded giant, and a Scandinavian warrior took the compound?”
“Yeah. I know it sounds like the start of a ‘they all walked into a bar’ joke, but it’s true.”
“Huh.” Crusher looked over at a huge man with an ugly snake tattoo coiling around his thick neck. “What do you think about that , Viper?”
As if being named gave him permission to speak, the man said, “Sounds like he saw the Devils, for sure, Prez.”
“No kidding.” Crusher stared at Michael again, but this time he looked thoughtful. “So you saw Dux, Drake, Viking, and Ice shoot up your sacred Garden.”
“I – I guess so,” Michael said, thinking that ‘Ice’ was surely the one with the cold stare. “I mean – I’m assuming you know these boys?”
“Oh, hell, yeah. We go way back with The Road Devils – or at least we did until the fucking President Wolf Connor pulled them out of the life. Took them straight.”
That was when Michael understood why Crusher was such a bizarre combination of pissed off and thrilled: no way he’d have any use or respect for a bunch of pussies who’d walked away from the world that Crusher breathed, and killed for, and loved, and was ready to die for. It would be the ultimate insult to him for a bunch of former allies to turn their backs on him and his MC… he’d have been just looking for an opportunity to make them pay.
And here I’ve just walked into his house and given him the perfect excuse to let loose on them .
“Not that they’ve really been all that straight,” Crusher mused. “We can’t prove it, but we think that they recently offed a guy who did some back-handed legal work for us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Crusher looked over at Viper, who was clearly surprised that his President was sharing club business with an outsider. “Lawyer named Brian Fielding. His ex took up with one of The Road Devils members, and soon after, Fielding disappeared. Just poof.”
“Holy shit,” Michael said. “Sounds like you’re right, and these boys are still balls-deep in the life.”
“Maybe.” Crusher stared at his Vice-President some more. “Call Dawson at The Blood Crew’s clubhouse, like right now. I need to do a Denver check-in before I figure out which way to jump.”
That was a surprise for Viper, for a few reasons. First, Crusher and Dawson were allies of habit and necessity – both being MC Presidents gave them quite a bit of common ground, naturally. However, Dawson Kinney leaving The Road Devils and starting a splinter MC (all behind Wolf Connor’s back), made him a traitor and therefore, ultimately untrustworthy. Crusher and Wolf may have no love lost between them, but what Dawson did went so hard against the code, Crusher would never really treat Dawson like a legitimate Prez. Nor would he ever trust him.
Second – and in some ways, far more importantly – Dawson had swept up all of The Road Devils’ dirty contracts and deals with the now-not-so-dearly-departed Kirk Jensen… money that Crusher had wanted for his own MC. And to be totally fair, Crusher and Kirk had been partners for longer than Dawson had even been in The Road Devils, so if there was a successor, it was Crusher. Dawson sneaking in there and taking what Crusher had regarded as his was an absolute source of frustration and anger for Crusher. Worse, he was still having to work with Dawson, because so much of The Highway Hellions’ drugs still came through Denver, forcing Crusher into bed with Dawson.
So, yeah. The Hellions and The Crew were tied together, for better or worse, but the whole idea that Crusher would go seeking Dawson’s advice or counsel was a bit of a shock. His President’s word was law, though, so of course Viper would do it.
“Yeah, sure,” Viper said now, keeping the surprise in his voice to a minimum. “I’ll get him on the meeting room phone for you. Five minutes.”
“ Two minutes,” Crusher snarled. “At most .”
Viper took off at a trot and Michael watched him go, amused. Yeah, Crusher was still a feared and fearsome son-of-a-bitch, that was for damn certain. Thank Christ he was on his side.
“So.” Crusher returned his full attention to Michael. “You look like three kinds of shit, Web, and no lie. Let’s get a few of the pass-arounds to cook you something, find you some clothes, get one of the back rooms ready. Hell, you can fuck ‘em stupid and you don’t even have to ask. Just take what you want when you want, man. You’re my personal guest.”
“I only want one thing.”
“Name it.”
“I want to be the one to kill Briley Cross. Just me. I don’t care about any of the rest of the pricks who took the Garden, so The Road Devils assholes are all yours, and you can settle that score. But that bitch is mine .”
“Ahhhh.” Crusher’s eyes were shrewd and gleaming. “Let me guess… she killed Gideon.”
“Yeah.” Michael swallowed hard. “Blew his chest wide open. But I don’t have the first clue where she is, or even how to begin looking. I need your help.”
“We’ll find her, man. Nobody can hide forever.” Crusher glanced down the hallway, saw Viper motioning to him from the meeting room door. “I gotta go, Web. You help yourself to anything you want, just hang out. As soon as I’m done, we’ll get you all set up to stay here and lay low for as long as it takes.”
“Is Shay around?” Michael asked, remembering that Crusher’s sister had ended up here with him. She’d been claimed as club property by proxy, so she’d definitely be the equivalent of a club woman-servant. “Maybe she can get me some clothes and a beer?”
“Shay’s dead,” Crusher said shortly. “Ace Cuddy killed her over in Colorado about a year ago.”
“ What ?” Michael gaped at his friend. “Ace Cuddy ? Isn’t he from one of your biggest MC partners, over in Denver? The Fallen Angels, right? I thought he was President.”
“Yeah, well…” Crusher rolled his massive shoulders. “Turns out Cuddy was a cock-sucker – and I mean a literal cock-sucker, he had a boyfriend stashed away in Denver somewhere – and he was working against us the whole time. He killed Kirk Jensen, and Shay, and some nobody club member of Cuddy’s up in the mountains.”
Michael wasn’t sure where to begin with this information overload. He’d been in the Garden for almost two years, so he’d clearly missed all of this news, but still… Kirk Jensen was supposed to have been the most untouchable criminal Denver had ever seen. The thought that he’d actually been taken down was unbelievable, even more so that he’d been duped by a supposed ally. As for Ace being both a traitor and a cock-sucker, well… Michael didn’t actually know which of those things was more shocking.
Shay , though. That was a goddamn shame. She’d been such a cute, sweet, smart kid and she deserved way better than to be killed in some MC bullshit gone wrong.
“Anyway.” Crusher nodded at Viper, turned towards the meeting room. “You make yourself right at home, Web.”
“Can I get a phone? I need to call a few people over in New Mexico, let them know where I am and that I’m with you.”
“Sure. Gimme an hour and I’ll have a burner sorted for you, no sweat.”
“Crusher – thank you. For all of it.”
“You got it.” He clapped Michael on the shoulder, and the smaller man’s knees almost buckled beneath him. “But thank you , too… you showed up here at just the right time.”
“The right time?” Michael echoed. “To do what?”
Crusher flashed him a grin. “To give me a reason to remind people how exactly I earned my name.”